Small-Minded and the Unfinished Tower: A Response to Dr. Mensa Otabil on the National Cathedral

On August 9, 2026, Dr. Mensa Otabil during a sermon, told his congregation that Ghanaians are “so small-minded that we allow politics to blind us,” aiming the rebuke squarely at those still opposing the stalled, roughly $97 million National Cathedral project. He went further, defending the idea that Christians should build on a grand scale as an act of worship, not extravagance. He does this while acknowledging that some of the loudest opposition has come from other Christians.

In doing so, he draws a false dichotomy between true believers and believers who simply want development that benefits the country.

This is a serious statement from a serious man, and it deserves a serious answer. It has gnawed at me enough that, tempting as it is to dismiss it, I think it ought to be scrutinized instead.

I want to use Luke 14:28 as a framework and context for my response.

What Luke 14:28 Actually Asks
Jesus’ parable of the tower-builder is often read as an endorsement of bold Christian ambition. It is not. It is a warning about the discipline that must precede ambition: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?”

The text is not concerned with whether a tower is big. It is concerned with whether the builder can finish what he started. An unfinished tower; in our case, one that for all purposes is a foundational swimming pool does not glorify anyone. It becomes a public joke, a monument to a builder who did not sit down and count the cost first.

Measured against its own text, Ghana’s National Cathedral has already failed this test. Years behind schedule. Cost estimates disputed rather than settled. No clear finish line in sight. Luke 14:28 makes it foolhardy to defend “thinking bigger” in the face of criticism; it calls instead, for an honest accounting before criticism ever needs to start.

Is the Rebuke Parochial?
There is a narrower kind of small-mindedness worth naming here, and it runs the other direction. Labeling critics of the Cathedral as politically blinded shifts the argument away from the project’s actual record: its cost, its transparency, who is paying for it, and what else that money might have done — and onto the character of the person raising the question. That is a rhetorical maneuver, not a reply to one.
It is also not a disinterested one. Dr. Otabil has himself been connected to this project’s Board of Trustees, during a period in which other board members departed amid concerns about financial irregularities. Calling for Ghanaians to “think bigger” while that history remains unresolved is, in effect, calling for less scrutiny at precisely the moment more is owed.

Glory to God, or a Tower of Babel with a Cross on It?
The dividing line between a monument to God and a monument to human ambition was never about size. Genesis 11 does not condemn height; it condemns motive. “Let us make a name for ourselves,” an ambition detached from the actual needs of the people doing the building.

A cathedral substantially funded by public money, built in a secular and religiously plural republic, defended by language that shames skeptics rather than answering them has to reckon honestly with the Babel question, not assume its own innocence. Whose name is actually being made great here? Who is paying the bill, and who gets to stand at the ribbon-cutting?

The False Dichotomy
Framing this debate as faithful visionaries against politically blinded skeptics does not survive contact with the facts, including facts Dr. Otabil himself has acknowledged. That is, some of the Cathedral’s fiercest critics are Christians. Faith and fiscal seriousness are not opposites. Demanding a transparent, audited account of $97 million in public funds is not evidence of a shrunken soul. It is the ordinary stewardship Scripture asks of anyone handling money that is not their own.

What “Thinking Bigger” Is Competing Against
The call to look past politics and dream larger arrives at an uncomfortable moment for Ghana, measured against the country’s own data:
* More than 10,700 public basic schools across thirteen regions have no classroom block at all, affecting over three million pupils. This is a figure from the 2025 Auditor-General’s report.
* At the pace the government has replaced “schools under trees” since 2021, clearing the existing backlog would take more than 300 years.
* Ghana’s housing deficit exceeds 1.8 million units, with only a third of annual housing needs being met.
* Ghana’s Corruption Perceptions Index score fell to 42 out of 100 in 2024, dropping the country to 80th of 180 nations. Although, in February 2026, Ghana increased to 43 placing 76th. While February 26th’s uptick presents a marked improvement, it is still a decline, not an improvement, in the trend that matters most.
* Ghana averages 0.9 beds for every 1000 people in our hospitals.

Set against those numbers, a call to “think bigger” about a religious monument does not read as spiritual maturity. It reads as priorities out of order.

Does God Want a Sacrifice When the Ledger Is Empty?
Scripture is not ambiguous on this point. Isaiah 1 and Amos 5 both describe a God who rejects the sacrifices, solemn assemblies, and offerings of a nation that neglects justice, not because the offerings are too small, but because they are being used to paper over what the nation has actually failed to do.

A cathedral cannot launder the injustice that exists in a country that claims to follow Christian and Muslim ethos, an education crisis, a housing crisis, a bedding crisis in the Nation’s teaching hospital utilized by majority of the populace, or a worsening corruption trend simply by being large and dedicated to God. If the project’s own funding and accountability remain unresolved, no size of building resolves that.

Questions Worth Asking Directly
Is it small-minded to want an independent audit of $97 million in public spending before being asked to think bigger?
If the Cathedral’s own board could not hold together over questions of integrity, whose small-mindedness is actually on trial: the critics outside, or the stewardship inside?
Is a state-linked national cathedral something Ghana’s secular constitutional order should be building at all, prior to any question of its size or cost?

And if that money had instead gone toward the 10,700 schools still without a classroom, how many Ghanaian children would be out from under the trees today?

What if that money instead built computer centers that taught our children to code, equipping them to compete with the rest of the world?

The Honest Reading
Luke 14:28 does not say cathedrals are wrong. It says: do not call an unfinished tower a triumph, and do not call the people asking why it remains unfinished small. The smallness worth worrying about is not in the critics counting the cost. It is in the builder who never did.